University makes $1.2 million payment to Hamden

President John Lahey made a voluntary payment to the town of Hamden for more than $1.2 million Thursday, after declining to make the payment last year in opposition to a Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission amendment.

The commission looked into passing an amendment that would have given it the authority to approve the university’s five-year master plan. The commission, however, voted last month to no longer pursue this amendment.

Now that the amendment is off the table, the university made the $1,231,934 voluntary payment.

“Quinnipiac University is proud to call Hamden home,” Lahey said in a press release. “Providing this voluntary payment is an affirmation of the university’s ongoing support and appreciation of all that Hamden does for Quinnipiac.”

This is the highest amount the university has voluntarily paid the town in recent years. For the past few years, the university has made a voluntary payment of $100,000 a year to Hamden.

The amount represents 40 percent of the $3 million Hamden got from Connecticut in 2013 through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program. Through the PILOT program, towns with colleges, get money from the state because educational institutions do not pay taxes on property used for educational purposes.

Quinnipiac paid $322,354 in property taxes during the 2013-2014 fiscal year on property that is not used for educational purposes, according to a press release.